Drafting
Drafting is the bulk of the work. Trove tries to stay out of the way: the editor is the centre of the screen, the chrome dims when you don’t need it, and the file you’re writing is the same file on disk that it’d be in any other editor.
Open a Scene and write
Section titled “Open a Scene and write”Click a Scene in the Manuscript Tree (or create one anywhere with ⌘ ⇧ N). The editor takes the centre column. Type. Saves are automatic.
The editor is Tiptap on top of ProseMirror, persisting as Markdown. You get inline shortcuts:
#,##,###for headings-and1.for lists>for blockquotes**bold**,*italic*,`code`---for a horizontal rule
Footnotes, images, links, and tables all map to standard CommonMark.
Sprints
Section titled “Sprints”A Sprint is a timed writing session with a word goal. Start one from the Sprint surface in the sidebar or from the Command Palette.
Pick:
- Duration — 25 minutes by default; set what you like.
- Goal — words to add. Quick-start gives you 25 minutes and 500 words.
Trove records your starting word count, runs the timer, and shows the delta. When the timer ends you get a Toast — keep writing or stop. Either way the Sprint is logged. More in Sprint.
Sessions and goals
Section titled “Sessions and goals”A Session is the broader writing-time tracker. Every Sprint, plus any free writing you do, rolls up into daily and weekly totals, a writing-stats heatmap, and per-Manuscript progress against its word target. Set goals and deadlines per Manuscript from its overview; the Desk shows your recent activity when you open the app.
Focus mode
Section titled “Focus mode”The editor has a focus mode (⌘ ↵) that dims the chrome and centres the prose at a comfortable measure, and a typewriter option that keeps the current line vertically anchored while you type. Both live in Editor tools.
Inline references and Entities
Section titled “Inline references and Entities”Type [[ to insert a reference. Trove pops up an autocomplete of Characters, Locations, and other Entities from the linked Codex — plus Scenes and Tome Notes. Pick one — Trove renders the name and the link is tracked, rename-safe.
References light up the Entity’s References panel — open a Character and you’ll see every Scene that mentions her. See References.
Sticky Notes and Comments
Section titled “Sticky Notes and Comments”Two ways to leave reminders inside a Scene:
- Sticky Notes — small typed, coloured notes pinned to the side of the Scene. They live in a sidecar file next to the Scene (
<scene>.notes.toml); they do not appear in the prose. Good for “fix this transition”, “check the character name”, or a colour-coded TODO. - Comments — inline annotations on a text range. The text stays put; the comment shows in the gutter. Good for revision passes where you want the prose intact.
Saves and conflicts
Section titled “Saves and conflicts”Trove writes to disk on debounce — typically within a second of you pausing. Each Scene saves to its own .md file, atomically (write to temp, rename).
If you edit the same Scene outside Trove (in another Markdown editor, for example) while it’s open in Trove, Trove will notice the file changed and prompt you before overwriting. The desktop app is single-writer per file by design — keep one editor authoritative at a time.
Auto-save and crash safety
Section titled “Auto-save and crash safety”The desktop app is crash-safe. If Trove dies mid-edit, the worst case is you lose whatever was in the input buffer since the last debounced save (usually under a second). No corrupted files; no half-written .md. The atomic-write pattern guarantees that any .md on disk is either the previous good version or the new good version.